A Safefull of diamonds
by ChickWalker2000
Summary: The tale of a bank robbery, a Bryant pump, a runaway girl and her cowboy, some diamonds and a whole lot of poker games -  And the real Hotchkiss and Rembaker.


_**OR; How to Rob a Girl in One Hard Lesson**_

The story of a bank robbery, a Bryant pump, a runaway girl and her cowboy, some diamonds and a whole lot of poker games - And the _real _Hotchkiss and Rembaker.

_**"...cos I found out that just a year and a half ago, you two boys robbed the Merchant's Bank in Denver. And you remember what was inside boys? A brand new Pierce and Hamilton 1878..."**_

_**- Harry Waggoner; 'How To Rob A Bank In One Hard Lesson.**_

"Hotchkiss, Johnson Alexander Hotchkiss."

"Hotchkiss. Yes, I do think there's a message for you sir, if you'll just wait a moment."

The blonde haired man in the sharp, city suit leaned back against the counter of the Telegraph Office watching the bustling street. It was a couple of years since he'd been in this town. Denver sure was getting big and busy. Almost civilised - for the west.

"Yes, Mr Hotchkiss, this came in just over an hour ago." The man handed him a telegram. Hotchkiss tapped on the window to get the attention of his partner. It took a couple of tries - Lew Rembaker was engrossed in helping a very pretty girl dressed in the latest eastern fashions get over a peculiarly rutted and muddy patch of road. This help necessitated holding her steady by the waist, offering him a fine glance of a neat ankle as she giggled and blushed her thanks to the smiling, dark haired man.

"Hey! Hey, Rembaker!" The blonde half of the partnership yelled through the glass. "Get in here!" He waved the telegraph, grinning like the cat that got the cream and half the butter besides.

"She's arrived! And so has the money!"

"But Henry!"

The girl sat on the bed, her face red, puffy, tear stained. The cowboy paced the room in an agitated fashion.

"No Sarah! I mean it! You gotta send them jewels back to yer ma!"

"But Henry!"

"I ain't gonna listen to yer no more Sarah. You send them jewels back or... or... Or I won't marry yer."

The girl looked up at him, shocked to the core. "Henry Summerville! You've ran off with me! I'm a ruined woman, you gotta marry me!"

Henry ran his fingers through his hair. He stopped pacing a while and stood with his hands on his hips, trying to figure what to say to her. He didn't have no skill with fancy words. He wasn't an educated man - oh, he could read and write and all, but his pa died when he was four years old and he'd had to leave home when he was only twelve and sign up to a cattle drive. The life was hard - fifteen hours a day in the saddle and didn't hardly pay enough to keep a body alive. But he'd worked hard, got in at a good ranch and made his way up to chief hand - was hoping to be made foreman when Sam Fisher retired next fall. He hadn't figured on falling in love with the bosses daughter - and she with him.

"Henry! I can't go home now, my pa will kill me. And you too. Oh Henry! You gotta marry me!"

And there she was, off a weepin' and a wailin' again! Wouldn't have thought a body that tiny could hold so much water. He sat down beside her on the bed, tenderly laid her head on his chest and let her cry it all out.

"There, there little darlin'. I don't want nothing more in all this world 'cept to marry you. It's just... You can't just up and steal thirty thousand dollars worth of jewels, even if they were promised you. Your Daddy's already mad as all Hades about you runnin' off with me and he sure is gonna come down hard on us both over those diamonds. Sarah, you gotta see sense. He'll track me down to the ends of the earth and have me thrown in jail for..."

How long would they put a man in jail for stealing $30,000 worth of jewels? He didn't really know, never having been on the wrong side of the law in his life, but it gotta be a lot of time. Thirty, maybe fifty years. More.

"Sugar, you gotta send em back. That's all he wants. He'll up and leave us alone I'm sure, once he gets them diamonds..."

"Oh no, not my Pa! I'm my father's prize pony, Henry. He had plans for me. Wants to marry me off and breed me like a brood mare. Well I ain't being put out to stud with no banker. I love you."

"And I love you too darlin'"

"Do you Henry?"

"Oh sugar!"

The girl laid her head back down on Henry's shoulder.

"Oh Henry, all I want is you."

"Well if all you want is me, why'd you need them jewels?"

"Oh Henry, you're insufferable!"

This time Sarah was the one on her feet, stamping around the room, waving a white silk handkerchief like she was surrendering to someone.

"We have to live! How are we going to do that...?"

"By hard work and honesty, same way as I always done it. All need is some land I can start off from and I already told you I saved enough money for that. Wouldn't have run off with you if I didn't know

"I could support you."

"Hard work is all it's gonna take to get us on our way. I thought you knew that and I thought you felt the same way. Now I ain't so sure.

"You know, I shoulda known better, fallin for a rich man's daughter. You've been used to fancy clothes and fine living and I know now it ain't fair to ask you to dirty your hands as a farmer's wife.

"Now I really don't know what to do, Sarah. So I reckon I'll take me down to the saloon and play a little poker so's you got time to think it through. When you've decided, you come let me know. I'll be waitin'." And Henry picked up his hat and his gun and walked out of the room, closing the door on the weeping girl.

"So - what do we do first?" Hotchkiss asked, lying back on the hotel bed, a celebratory cigar in his mouth, watching his partner counting the huge wad of cash they'd just picked up at the bank.

"Well, reckon we've gotta meet her, get her confidence somehow. Find out where she's stashed them jewels."

"Well you better leave that to me then, partner. You know as well as I do, girl like that ain't gonna look twice at you..."

Rembaker stood, arms folded, eyebrows raised, listening with amused disbelief as Hotchkiss went on -

"Now Lew, I never get shirty with you though you're always tellin me I'm stupid. That don't bother me none. You go on thinkin' that if that's what gives you pleasure. You just go on being the brains of the outfit. Me, I'm content to be the pretty one."

"Content to be the drunk one."

John tut-tutted in amusement. "Jealousy's a terrible thing my friend. Just cos all the girls love John Hotchkiss. Romancin' the ladies is my 'fortay'."

"Your forte huh?"

"That's right, so I suggest you stay here in the room and work on that plan you're so darn proud of..."

"My plan is to keep you as far away from Sarah Deans as possible, preferably at least two states away..."

"Well, I need some female company anyhow, set me up for the job in hand. I'm gonna have me a bath and a shave and put on some cologne, then I'm going downtown to meet a lady."

"First time for everything I suppose."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"'Lady' isn't exactly the word I'd use to describe the kind of females you hang out with."

"Oh is that a fact?"

"Yes it is," Rembaker smirked annoyingly.

"Well at least I kin get female company. You ever remember a woman I couldn't get sweet with?"

"Yeah, I remember her. But you got your own back. You didn't pay her."

Hotchkiss glared thunderbolts at his partner, but being unable to think up a come-back, simply stood up with an air of wounded dignity, and left the room.

"No! No! I can't work it out! That safe ain't human. It'd take me a week to get in there!"

Hannibal Heyes paced the floor of their hotel room. Sometimes he'd stop, pause a while, as if he'd suddenly remembered something, then he'd shake his head, run his fingers through his long dark hair and carry on pacing up and down, back and forth...

"Heyes will you sit down! You're driving me crazy!" Kid Curry lay on the bed, brooding.

They were resting up after a long, uncomfortable, sleepless night in the Merchant's Bank. Kid was still stiff from having spent five long hours on guard, crouched down by the window as his partner and friend had tried to crack the combination.

The safe was the best, the latest the most up-to-date there was; all the way from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - a brand new Pierce and Hamilton safe.

The Denver Bank had seemed like a cinch when they'd looked it over a few weeks back. "Virtually no security at all and I could pick that big old lock they got there on the door in my sleep!" Heyes had laughed when they got back to Devil's Hole. Opportunity had presented itself after a small but neat little train job up in Wolcott that netted them two thousand dollars a piece. The gang had split up for the summer to spend it's ill gotten gains and it'd been decided - by Heyes - that he and Kid should go over to Denver for a little fun, and to hit the Merchant's Bank.

That safe! He'd never come across another like it.

Now, Heyes loved a challenge. Some men climbed mountains, others trekked across unknown continents, founded cities, discovered the sources of rivers. For Hannibal Heyes, it was a safe they said could not be cracked.

"How much money do you think is in there?" he asked - the empty bed?

He looked around the room - while he'd been lost in thought, his partner had got up and was now shaving over at the mirror.

"I dunno," Kid said. "Gotta be plenty, big important bank like that, right in the middle of town."

"Gotta be at least twenty, maybe fifty, maybe one hundred thousand dollars!" Heyes said, eyes shining.

"Yeah? Well it don't really matter now does it, Heyes, since you can't crack it."

"No." Heyes sighed, then his eyes brightened - "No... there's got to be a way, Kid. There's always a way. Just a matter of finding it."

"Yeah? Well, don't think too long, Heyes cos I wanna be out of here tonight."

"Tonight?"

"Sure," Kid shrugged, wiping off the soap with a towel. "May I remind you we're paying five bucks a day for this room. Ain't no reason to stay if we can't get in that safe."

"We could blow it..." Heyes mused to himself.

"Blow it? With dynamite?" Kid grabbed Heyes by the shoulders and shoved him over to the window. As always, they'd booked a room with a view of the street. The window also overlooked the Merchant's Bank. Heyes liked to be able to think about the job twenty four hours a day.

"Look out there Heyes. The bank is right in the centre of Denver. Sits next to the Saloon on one side, hotel on th' other. Sheriffs office and Bannerman Detective Agency, right over the street there."

Kid pointed up to the distant blue mountains. "Now, see over there? There's a good mile of road to ride before we hit open country. Are you really suggesting we blow up a safe in the middle of the city of _Denver_?"

Kid went over to the dresser and began splashing cologne on his face. Heyes glanced at his partner, saw the look of thunder reflected back at him from the mirror. He put his hands in his pockets and resumed pacing.

"No. No..." he muttered, shaking his head. "Leave it with me. Give me another day."

"What for?"

Heyes shook his head.

"Cos there's a way in there. I know. I can feel it. It's out there - somewhere..."

Curry shook his head in irritated wonder.

"...Just give me one more day to think it through. If I haven't come up with an answer, we'll go."

"OK. OK Heyes, if that's what you want. You comin' to breakfast?"

"Mmmmmm? No, no. I'll grab a sandwich or something in the saloon later. There's a poker game..."

"Always is Heyes."

"You go. I'll sit here a spell. I need to think."

"Well don't think too long, go overheating your head and give yourself a brain fever... Heyes?"

"Hmmmmmmmm?"

"Don't forget to eat now, will you?"

"I won't if you won't," Heyes called with a grin.

The hotel restaurant was real pretty Curry thought, looking around, enjoying the scene. Bright polished silver, flowers and clean white linen on the tables. So this is what you get for $5 a day? Maybe they should splash out more often. Maybe if they didn't play so much poker...

The waiter showed him to a table where he sat and looked at the menu and tried to ignore whoever it was tapping their fingernails repeatedly, rhythmically, annoyingly on the table beside him. The noise was really beginning to irritate, and finally, he turned round to glare at the offender - surprised to see it was a good-looking girl of about nineteen; blonde hair, green eyes, small, fine features. She caught his gaze, looked away embarrassed and sat, wringing a large white silk handkerchief. He judged from the state of that handkerchief that it'd taken one hell of a lot of the same treatment recently.

He smiled at her. She tried to ignore him, tried to look haughty, but Kid's smile was so amiable, his eyes so kind. She felt as if she were being lured into a deep, blue pool of sweet warm water.

"Sam Barton," Kid smiled, holding out his hand.

She couldn't help but smile back, giving his hand the lightest touch. "Sarah Deans."

"Pleased to meet you, Sarah Deans."

"...so Henry's gone down to the 'saloon'" - she said the word as though it were the worst profanity she knew - "says he's waiting for my answer. Well, I can't go into a saloon after him and he knows it! That's how I know it's over..."

Tears sprang into her eyes. Curry offered her wet, creased handkerchief.

"...Thank you. So, I just don't know what I'm going to do. I can't go home and...Oh!"

To Kid's surprise, she gave a little cry and dropped under the table.

"Sarah? What are you doing?"

"He mustn't see me! The man, behind you. The blonde man in the grey suit!"

Kid stole a glance behind. A blonde man in an expensive, citified suit had indeed walked into the room. He stood in the door, clearly looking for someone.

"What's the matter? Sarah, get up. Take it from me, sitting under a table in a crowded restaurant's not the way to avoid attracting attention."

"He mustn't see me!"

Kid got up, moved to the far side of the table. Keeping his back to the man, he slipped down, hoisted the girl up by her wrist, and, slipping an arm around her waist, he walked her out the door.

"No! Stop! What are you doing! If my fiancée sees you manhandling me like this..."

"You wanted to get out the restaurant without being seen didn't you?" Kid grinned. Getting his hands around a pretty stranger's slim waist was what he called a nice way to round off a meal.

"Yes. Well..." The girl smoothed down her dress, adjusted her hair in the mirror by the door.

"So," Curry grinned. "What's his name, why's he looking for you, and why are you so keen to avoid him?"

"His name is Johnson Hotchkiss and he's a Bannerman Detective."

The lobby seemed to swim around Kid Curry, the floor turned to molasses beneath his feet. Taking Sarah by the hand, he moved to the other side of the lobby. He sat down with her on an overstuffed sofa with it's back to the restaurant, instinctively placing himself near the front door, with a clear view to the street and the restaurant reflected in the mirror above them. He placed his right hand on his gun and kept a tight hold on Sarah's hand in his left.

All of this happened in the blinking of an eye and Sarah hadn't even noticed Kid's subtle manoeuvres or the sudden change in his mood and demeanour as she chatted on.

"He's working for my father," she hissed in his ear. "Him and his partner have been trailing me and Henry since we left Texas. I thought we lost them in Bountiful but here they are again! Oh Lord! Oh glory!"

Kid tried to keep a straight face. Despite the sudden threat of Bannermen men, the whole thing was kinda unbelievable.

"But - why are they chasing you?"

The girl looked at him, suddenly wondering why she was telling him all this. She decided he just had one of those faces - honest, decent, trustworthy. The kind of man - a bit like her Henry, really - that you couldn't ever imagine being cruel or cowardly or doing a wrong or unlawful thing. And she liked the way he wore his gun with such confidence. He looked like he knew a thing or two. She decided to trust him.

"He's looking for my jewels."

"Beg pardon?"

"My jewels. Oh, don't worry, they're safely hidden in my room. But that's what he's come for. And me of course."

"Of course."

"I ran off you see, with Henry. We're going to be married. Please don't look at me like that!"

"Like what?"

"Oh I know what you're thinking, but it isn't true. We have separate rooms. Henry hasn't laid a finger on me all this time, and he won't. Not till we're legally wed..."

"Sarah, I never imagined he had," Curry smiled.

"Well. The trouble is, I was worried. When we decided to take off, Henry promised me he had plenty of money put by and he'd be able to take care of me. But then, when it was all arranged and I was all ready to go. I, well... I found out that Henry's idea of plenty of money didn't exactly meet with mine."

"Oh." Curry nodded.

"And so, I felt, what with my father being a very wealthy man and all, who wouldn't miss a few thousand dollars, really he wouldn't..."

Curry felt a strangely familiar sinking feeling start up in the pit of his stomach.

"...I took something. Something that was my mother's and was always meant for me anyway. It was to be mine for a wedding present, when I got married. And, since I am getting married, well, I thought I'd bring it with me."

"You did?"

"Yes."

"What?"

"A necklace."

"A necklace?"

"Diamond necklace."

Curry nodded. "Valuable?"

"About thirty thousand dollars."

Hannibal Heyes strolled down the street, enjoying the hustle and bustle of city life and the late summer heat on his back. He'd spotted a fine game of poker in a backstreet saloon - well away from the sheriffs office, not to mention that Bannerman place so close to the hotel that gave him the heebie-jeebies just looking at it out the hotel room window.

He'd taken the fire escape out of the building - figured that, suspicious though that looked to anyone who cared to think about such things, it was still a more comfortable route than the main door that looked right into that nest of detectives.

On the way, he passed a mining supplies store - lot of those in Denver, lot of miners about, all come in to sell their gold and hooray the town. They all needed supplies - to get stocked up before heading back to the hills.

As he passed, he saw something in the window that really caught his eye - something he had never seen before. A card advertised it as the latest thing in mining engineering. His curiosity alight, he stepped into the cool, dark interior where a small, balding man was demonstrating the same item to two hard-bitten characters in filthy plaids and buckskins.

"...And the water is pumped at a rate of a gallon per second."

"Per second!" The dirtier of the pair exclaimed, spraying around a pint of tobacco stained spittle over the little man's spectacles.

"Yes sir, that's right," the man sighed, cleaning off his glasses with accustomed weariness. "Would you like to see a demonstration?"

"Yes, I would," Heyes said, with a smile. "Matt Slattery. Travelling salesman," he grinned, noting the two men looking him over and knowing no one was going to take him for a miner.

He tipped his hat to the man behind the counter. "I've been doing a lot of business around the mining camps and I do know what a problem flooding has been this season."

"Dang right you are there young fellah," the older and slightly cleaner of the two prospectors yelled at the top of his lungs, too much dynamiting did that to a man. "Set us back moren' a time or two, right Cole?"

Cole chewed his tobacco and nodded his head with a look of grave suspicion.

"S'why we're down here, lookin at pumps." - Heyes was sure a scatter of plaster came down from the ceiling as the old man went on.

"Jim, Jim Levene," he introduced himself, clutching Heyes' hand in a callused grip, pumping it like a steam hammer. He relinquished it to point at the device on the counter.

"Y'ever seen one like this before, son?" he asked. Heyes half expected the people of Salt Lake City to ask him to keep it down.

"No, no, I can't say I have," he said, rubbing his crippled right hand. "Looks mighty small to shift so much water," he said to the shopkeeper.

"Ah, yes indeed. That's because it works by creating a vacuum in a sealed chamber. It's the vacuum that does the work.

"Now, by attaching a pipe or rubber tube here" - the man demonstrated - "and pumping like so..." The man's face began to purple after less than a minute.

"Looks hard work..."

"No, oh no, no, no!" The little man puffed, stopping to wipe his brow with his handkerchief. "So long as the unit attached to the tube is sealed tight, you will create a vacuum..."

Heyes had an excited glint in his eye, he licked his lips. "Sealed unit? What would you use for that if your chamber were a little leaky? Putty or something...?"

"Putty would work fine - or else..."

"Do you have many of these?" Heyes interrupted him. "I mean, is this for sale?"

"The Bryant Pump Sir? Oh yes indeed. We have seven in stock right now, but we're expecting more very soon. If you're seriously interested in purchasing for re-sale, we could come to terms on the price."

Heyes grinned. "Well, I'll just take one for now, get the feel of it, you know. Do you have any information available; how much air, exactly, it can move per minute, stuff like that?"

"I have all the manufacturer's details sir, if you'd like to wait a moment." The little man beamed eagerly, anticipating a big order and hurried off out back.

"You think this here gizmo'll do the job then, son?" Cole drawled at him, a river of tobacco juice flowing down his chin..

Heyes nodded and grinned. "Gentlemen, I think she's the answer to all my problems.

"Thank you," he said to the little man, who handed him a printed sheet with all the manufacturer's specifications - all the information he could ever need.

"Uh, could you tell me just one other thing. Do you sell nitro?"

Kid walked Sarah up to her room, where she paused, hand on the door knob as if thinking, and turned to him. "Mr Barton, would you think it terribly forward of me if I asked you to step inside my suite for a moment?"

Kid smiled. He didn't think anything thisgirl said or did could surprise him any more. "No Ma'am. Since it's a suite, I'm sure that would be perfectly proper."

Sarah beamed and ushered him inside.

"Could I offer you something?" she asked as Kid sat in one of the big armchairs by the door. "I don't have any brandy I'm afraid. I think Henry keeps a bottle of whiskey somewhere." She began to bang around the room, looking for it.

"Ma'am, Sarah. That's OK, it's a little early in the day for whiskey."

"Yes, of course. What was I thinking. I thought all you Western men... Well, whatever. Let's get straight down to business. Mr Barton. I like you."

"Well I like you too Ma'am," Kid smiled wondering what on earth was coming next.

"And I'd like to employ you as my bodyguard."

Kid laughed.

"No, I'm perfectly serious. You seem such an honest man..."

Kid tried to keep a straight face - and almost made it.

"...I like the way you handle yourself. I don't imagine you're the kind of person who'd be afraid of a couple of Bannerman men."

Kid stopped grinning. "Ma'am?"

"I have to sell my jewels, get myself and Henry out of town, lose the detectives and marry Henry."

"And you think I can somehow help you do all this? How?"

"Well I don't know, that's why I'm offering you five dollars a day to do the job."

"Five dollars a day?"

"That's right."

Kid smiled to himself, thinking of the two thousand dollars in his wallet right now. "Ma'am, I'll bodyguard you as much as you like, you don't have to pay me a cent."

"Mr Barton, you're laughing at me!"

"No Ma'am. Well, maybe just a little."

"But I'm deadly serious!"

Kid looked at her - she was too. He smiled. "Well, that's a mighty tempting proposition Miss Deans. I'll have to give that a little thought. You see, I'm here on business. Me and my partner were thinking of shipping out tonight..."

"Oh!" Out came the hanky for another wringing. "Oh, I'm sorry to hear that Mr Barton..."

"Look, I need to talk to my partner. It's just possible we may be here a couple more days yet. And he's the one to come up with a plan if anyone is."

She brightened slightly. "Well that would be wonderful!"

"I can't promise mind. I'm pretty sure we'll be leaving tonight. But, if it turns out we're staying after all..."

"Well, I'll be grateful for anything you can do to help. Oh, and Mr Barton..."

"Please, call me Sam."

"Sam!" She beamed. "Would you, could you, possibly do me one more little favour? Could you go over to the Silver Dollar Saloon and get Henry out of there? Tell him I need to talk to him..."

Heyes' eyes sparkled with pleasure. The Silver Dollar was his idea of a great saloon with every modern contrivance to pleasure the mind and body.

He stood by the bar, ordered a beer and waited for a place to open up on one of the poker tables, whiling away the time watching the girls, pretty dresses, all satin and sparkles, all colours of the rainbow. And the games; weighing up the quality of the players, their caution or recklessness, how big they bet and how they held back.

He soon sized up the table he was looking to join, though the one over by the door afforded the most amusement. He'd never seen such bungling play. Fortunately those involved seemed to know their own limits - they bet small, hardly bluffed and never took chances. He was almost sorry when a young drunk cowboy, suckered out of every hard earned penny by a dark haired city type got up from the game Heyes was after joining and staggered out the door.

Heyes quickly took his beer over to the empty space and slid into the still warm chair, just as Kid Curry walked in. Heyes nodded him over.

"Met a man named Henry Summerville?" Kid asked.

Heyes noticed the dark haired slicker opposite him jump slightly at the name, stealing a hard and questioning glance at Heyes and Curry.

"No. Should I have?" Heyes glanced quickly round the room - Henry Summerville, the name kinda had a Bounty Hunter sound to it somehow.

"I got a message for him."

"Henry Summerville you say?" a grizzled old cowboy beside them asked. "That's him, over there," the man said, pointing to the juniors table.

Kid and Heyes glanced behind them, where a blonde, tanned giant sat over by the door. It was the man Heyes had clocked as possibly the worst poker player he'd ever seen. Heyes noticed the dark haired man looking too and tilting his chair like he wanted to hide.

"Why'd you need to talk to him?" Heyes asked Kid.

"Just passing on a message is all," Kid said. "You thought anymore about when we're leavin town?"

Heyes smiled at him. "Talk to you about that back at the hotel." He gave Kid his brightest smile and the faintest ghost of a wink.

Kid nodded. So Heyes had a plan after all. Well, that suited him fine, gave him time to try and put right the world of little Miss Deans.

Kid touched his hat in thanks to the cowboy and, giving Heyes' shoulder a friendly squeeze, he turned to talk to Henry.

"OK," Heyes grinned to the table. "What's the buy in fellas?"

They were good players - but he was better. He played it careful, so's not to scare anyone or provoke em. He took it slow and he took their money, especially from the dark haired fella; real slicker and not the local variety neither - eastern type. Sharp expensive suit, hair all smoothed back with some fancy smelling pomade and an expression on his face like he just got shotguned into a wedding with the ugliest woman on earth who promptly upped and died and left him a million dollars.

Give him his due, the slicker was good, very good, and even managed to take some money off of Heyes - that's to say, Heyes made sure he did. Enough, at least, to keep him in the game, keep him dipping into that big wad of cash he'd got tucked inside his jacket. By the time he finally got a hand fit to call, he was broke, and couldn't.

He got up from that table and walked out the door a broken man - Heyes almost felt sorry for him as he scooped just over a thousand dollars into his wallet.

He found Kid deep in conversation with the big blonde guy.

"...so, you see, though I wanna be a farmer, love to be a farmer! The smell of new mown hay, and fresh turned earth. The joy of growing food for me and mine," he sighed. "I don't think Sarah's cut out to be a farmers wife."

"Get you boys a beer?" Heyes asked.

"Yeah, sure." Kid said. Henry shook his head as Heyes gestured for drinks.

"No, no thanking you kindly," he said. "I gotta be gettin along. Got an appointment with a lady." He turned to Kid; "I'm beholden to you for what you're tryin to do Mr Barton, but this is between me and my Sarah. I'll be obliged if you'll leave it to me to sort out fer myself. Gentlemen."

He tipped his hat to them, and went out the door.

Heyes leaned down on the back of the chair, watching Kid, a look of barely suppressed laughter on his face.

"What?" Kid asked.

"You off playing Sir Galahad again, Barton?"

Kid gave him his sceptical look. "Just trying to do a favour for a lady, Slattery. Ain't nothing wrong with trying to do a kindness..."

"Lady wouldn't be real pretty now would she?"

"Oh, now you gone and got it all wrong Matt with your cynical mind. Not everyone in this world's as devious as you."

"No, no. Some folks is downright twisted."

Heyes took the two cold beers from the waiter and sat down next to his friend.

"Lady's engaged," Kid said. "That there big fellah's her feeansay."

"Her what?" Heyes asked with a grin.

"Her intended. Yes, I do know what a feeansay is."

Heyes gave an irksome smirk

"Well, like the man said, he don't want my help. He's gone to talk to the lady..."

"Lady ought to talk to him some. Talk him outa ever playin poker again. Worst damn player I ever seen".

"Well," Kid drained his beer. "We ain't got time to waste sitting around saloons watching bad poker. We gotta get back, either you got a plan, or we gotta be movin' on."

Heyes smiled, his eyes bright with excitement. "I got some news on that front..."

"Good news I hope, because I ain't spending another long cold night like the last."

"No, no, I got it all figured out. Least, I will have. Need to do some calculating, little more thinking. But, I think I got it alright."

"Well, we can't talk about it here. I guess we better be getting back to the hotel. How much you take off that fella?"

"A lot."

"Good. Might go some way to making up for last night."

They got up in unison, instinctively watching the room and each other's backs as they moved out the door and into the street. Heyes stretched, breathing in the city smells intensified by the hot afternoon sun.

"You know, listening to poor Henry there, talking so lyrical about the simple life got me thinkin we might invest our little stake."

"Invest it? In what?"

"A farm."

Kid stared at him, not sure whether to believe him or not. "A farm?"

"Sure. This business is getting so hard, so risky. We could set up home together, you and me. Grow corn and alfalfa. Sit on the porch nights watching the shooting stars. Be just like our kid days..."

"You are joking? Heyes...?"

Heyes grinned at him.

"Yeah Heyes. Very funny."

"Whaddaya mean, you lost all the money?"

"How many times do I have to say it? it's a simple enough sentence to understand. I. Lost. The. Money."

"All of it?"

"Yes!"

"In God's name how?"

Rembaker paused, as if in thought. "I don't know," he said, after a long pause.

"You don't know...?"

"I mean, I know I lost it in a poker game but... No, I still don't get how he did it."

"You mean someone cheated you?"

"No, no I know all the tricks, I'm pretty sure I weren't suckered."

"Then how?"

"I don't know."

Hotchkiss threw himself on the bed in despair. "So what you're saying is, we got no money."

Rembaker shook his head.

"All the money old man Deans wired for us to use to get his girl and his diamonds back. The money that was an advance on our fee, that we gonna have to pay back if we _don't_ get the diamonds or the girl, is gone?"

"Yes."

"I'm gonna kill yer."

"Now John, calm down..."

John paused, as if considering the proposition before replying - "No. I'm gonna kill yer Lew. So stand stock still else I might just wound yer. Yer my friend and all and I don't want you to suffer so stand good and steady while I aim right for your goddamn cheatin', lyin' insufferable heart."

Hotchkiss took out his gun

"John! Goddamn it John, you're not serious?"

"Now Lew, stand still like I told you."

"John! Are you crazy?"

Hotchkiss aimed the gun at Rembaker who lunged at him. They struggled and the gun went off, firing a good, clean hole right through the ceiling. There was the sound of breaking china and a sharp female scream from the room above.

"Oh my Lord! Oh my good golly!" Hotchkiss cried, clutching his heart. "I didn't know it was loaded. As God's my witness I didn't know!"

"Good God John! Good God! You mighta killed me!"

"Did you load it you goddamn fool? I _never_ keep it loaded!"

Their door was flung wide and an irate, red faced man in his forties rushed into the room.

"Who took a shot at my mother?"

The two men stood there, open mouthed. Rembaker suddenly realising he was holding the smoking gun, thrust it into Hotchkiss's hands with a yelp. "It wasn't me!"

"Madman!" the man roared, lunging at Rembaker, wrestling him down on to the bed and socking him a stunning blow to the left eye just as Hotchkiss smashed a plain white hotel chamber pot across his head and the man went down with barely a murmur.

It had been raining. Soft at first, then harder. Finally settled into a real old-fashioned downpour.

The two men took refuge in a cheap spit-and-sawdust saloon near the station where they sat nursing a beer apiece. They'd both have prefered whisky, but neither had the money for liquor.

Hotchkiss hunkered down in his overcoat, but the cold damp worked its way through the cloth and down to his underwear, creating shivers and chills in the body of that sensitive young man the likes of which he hadn't known since he had the scarlet fever at the age of nine...

"Rembaker. I swear to God, if I ever get warm and dry again..."

"John, please. If I've heard it once I've heard it a thousand times..."

"Done a runner! Me. Johnson Alexander Hotchkiss the third."

"Third what?"

"Oh now, don't you start Lew! I'm warning you, I am angry fit to bust right apart. What are we gonna do? We ain't got enough cash even to keep us in that infernal flea pit you found moren' a few days. Are we gonna sleep in the street? I'll die of hypo thermeea. I swear to god..."

"Will you quit complainin'? We are goddam lucky we got out before that guy woke up. I still say we jump a box car going east..."

"Well you keep saying that and I keep on asking, what the devil for? What's waiting for us back east? The Bannerman agency's gonna be mad as hell at us anyhow for taking off and working a freelance job on their time. Now we've knocked an innocent hotel guest unconscious. We've took off without paying our bill.."

"Couldn't have paid the bill anyway."

"...For all old man Deans knows, we run of with his thousand dollars. He ain't got his daughter, not his diamonds neither. We got no job, we got no money. Hell, we're on the run!" The thought stopped him right in his tracks. "Johnson Hotchkiss, a wanted outlaw with a price on his head. It'll be the death of my Momma."

"Well she won't be the only member of your family to die premature if you don't stop whinin'"

Heyes lay on the bed, working away with a pad and pencil. Kid sat in the chair by the dresser, looking balefully at the box Heyes had laid there so carefully.

"Heyes?"

"Hmmmm?" Heyes went on working at his calculations, occasionally, irritably crossing things out, thinking, then going on.

"Heyes. I don't like it."

"Don't like what?"

"Keeping nitro In the room. It's too dangerous."

"Well where d'you want me to put it, the hotel safe?"

"'It's real explosive."

"Sure hope so," Heyes grinned. He put the pad aside, got up from the bed, went over and poured himself a drink from the bottle of whisky on the dresser.

"Well, I don't see how it helps us any. Still gonna make a big bang. Still gonna be heard right across Denver. We'll never get out of the bank and away before the posse's on us."

Heyes grinned. "I got a plan."

"You've always got a plan. You had a plan to break in the Merchant's Bank and crack their safe."

"This one'll work."

"Heyes, I got a bad feeling there's a lot you ain't telling me and that's not like you. Makes me think the reason you're not telling me is 'cos you ain't sure things is gonna go right."

Heyes paused to drink his whiskey.

"Kid, you know I wouldn't I'd lead you into anything we couldn't handle. The reason I don't tell you everything is just, well, it's all kinda complicated. Not that I'm sayin you couldn't handle a complex plan, but, there's a lot of variables..."

"A lot of what?"

"Things that could...well..."

"Go wrong?"

"No, not exactly, more - not work out."

"How is that different from go wrong?"

"Kid, that money's as good as ours. Trust me."

"Heyes. The girl..."

"Oh no, that's trouble, always is."

"I really want to help her."

"Seems to me she don't wanna be helped."

"Henry's right, she's gotta send them jewels home or she'll be on the run. Pretty girl like that shouldn't be on the run."

"I know one thing, man who plays poker the way Henry does sure don't know enough about life to make a fugitive."

"Well there you go. Heyes, we gotta help them."

"No we don't gotta help them. Kid, do I have to remind you, we're outlaws. We rob banks. There's Dime Novels about us on sale right here in Denver. You gotta stop this white knight malarkey, it's bad for business. And you don't really know anything about them. You don't even know if her story's true."

"She's got two Bannermen men trailing her..."

"She says. Where have they got to? Last I heard they'd attacked someone here in the hotel and left without payin their bill. Does that sound like a pair of Bannermen detectives to you? And maybe Henry's not what he seems. Maybe he'll beat her. Maybe he's planning to murder her and take her all."

Kid grinned. "Not Sarah. That little lady's too smart for that."

"Too smart? And she asked you for help?"

"We should try and get them a little stake."

"What, like our stolen money? That'd really help them."

Heyes poured himself another glass of whisky, then stopped dead. He stared at Kid, open mouthed.

"Oh no. Heyes..."

Heyes grinned, pulled on his boots and strapped on his gun. "Kid, you go ask Sarah and Henry if they'd like to join us for dinner tonight."

"Where you going?"

"To check out the saloons. That idea I had just got a whole lot better."

Heyes ran his quarry down in the fourth or fifth bar he checked out.

He stood in the door, looked down to let the rain run off his hat, shook off his coat and stood over by the stove, trying to get dried off a little. He knew they'd seen him. He watched 'em out of the corner of his eye - saw the dark haired one staring at him with loathing. Heyes pretended not to see them at all and, staggering just a little, banging into a couple of chairs - lifting his hat in apology with a stupid grin, finally made it to the bar where he ordered a whiskey. He kept his back to 'em, studying them in the mirror, admiring the black eye the dark one'd aquired since they last met and wondered if the blonde one'd given it him. He sure looked mad enough to have done it, alright. And as he looked at them - the one so dark, the other so fair - he felt his plan, already a work of genius (though he said so himself), coming beautifully to fruition.

He turned and gazed stupidly round the room as he downed his drink, and - ordering another, pretended to suddenly spot Rembaker. Heyes lifted his glass in salute, grinning drunkenly.

Rembaker nodded in sour acknowledgement. Heyes staggered over to their table.

"Hey there buddy! How you doin'? What happened to your eye? That little blonde thing over at the Silver Dollar give you a hard time? I heard she's always deckin over-eager fellas like you!" He giggled, gripping Rembaker hard by the shoulder. "That was some poker game we had us there! I been out celebratin!'" Heyes chuckled.

Rembaker glowered silently to himself.

"Is this him?" Hotchkiss hissed at Rembaker, who simply nodded miserably.

"Hey! hey buddy!" Heyes grabbed Lew's shoulder in an iron grip. "What do you say to 'nother little wager?" he winked, swaying wildly with an asinine smile.

Hotchkiss sat and glared at him, a look of simmering fury on his aristocratic face.

"You guys ever heard of the pat hand trick?" Heyes asked.

"No, I never heard of that," Rembaker said.

Hotchkiss leaned over to his partner and hissed in his ear, "don't you dare, don't you dare start gambling with him, Lew."

Rembaker sighed. "John, we've got barely twenty dollars between us, I got no intention of taking him up..."

"You deal me twenty five cards, from a fresh shuffled pack, " Heyes slurred - "and I bet my thirty against your twenty, I can make five pat poker hands out of them."

"Look friend... what?" Rembaker asked.

Hotchkiss hissed, "I'm warning you Lew. Don't even think about it!"

Rembaker waved him quiet. "I deal you, twenty five cards and you make five pat hands outa them cards?"

Heyes nodded and grinned.

Rembaker stared at Heyes, then turned to Hotchkiss. "What are the odds on that?" he whispered

"Hell, I don't know," Hotchkiss muttered. "You're supposed to be the card sharp."

"My twenty against your thirty?" Lew asked Heyes.

"That's right!"

Hotchkiss gripped his partners elbow. "No. Lew, no. that's our last twenty, all we have in the world. Don't do it. Lew..."

"OK Mr - Slattery was it?"

"Call me Matt."

"OK Matt, I'll call you."

Twenty minutes passed. Hotchkiss was leaning back in his chair, watching carefully, the sparkle beginning to light in his blue eyes for the first time that day.

Heyes was struggling. "I don't understand!" he said. "Man said it works nine times outa ten."

"Well it isn't working now," Rembaker drawled. "Look friend, how much more time you need? You can't do it. I don't figure it can be done."

Heyes looked down at the table and sighed. "Nope, don't reckon it can. Well if that don't beat all. That guy musta lied to me! That's the second time I've been suckered today."

"And that makes this," Rembaker swept up the fifty bucks on the table, "mine!" He grinned with an air of triumph.

"Sheesh!" Heyes shook his head, pushed his hat back.

"Well, you'll have a glass of whisky with me Matt, show there's no hard feelings?" Rembaker asked Heyes.

"Well, I sure will Lew," Heyes grinned.

"And how'd you feel about a little Blackjack? Maybe I can even the score with you a little more."

Heyes laughed, taking the glass offered. "Well now Lew, I'll play with you anytime you want."

Hotchkiss grabbed Rembaker by the arm and swung him around to face him.

"Are you nuts?" he spat. "We got just enough money now to get us a warm dry bed, supper and our tickets home. You intend to spend that money buying whisky for drunks? Or maybe you figure you're going to lose another fifty to this bum here?"

Rembaker grinned. "Look at him John, he's drunker than the thirstiest, most proverbial of skunks."

"He's a sharpie Lew, he's figuring to take you again..."

"Let me do it John. I can take him, easy. I know I can."

"Lew, I'm warning you. You play Blackjack with that man and we are no longer friends."

Lew reached out and shook his partner's hand. "Well, bye then John. Been nice knowing you." And sat down opposite Heyes who was shuffling the pack...

Heyes had just lost the seventh hand in a row. Rembaker now had almost three hundred dollars off of him, and was going for more. Heyes kept drinking - enough to make Rembaker think he was drunk as ever. As a matter of fact, he was starting to feel real dizzy. He needed to sew this thing up soon...

When Heyes staggered off back to the street, Lew Rembaker leaned back in his chair with a look of satisfaction on his face, counting his money.

"How much'd you get off him?"

"Three hundred and seventy two dollars!"

"Not bad. A fair way off of a thousand mind."

"True my friend, true. However, the game was worth way more for the information that drunken fool spilled than actual cash winnings."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning..." Lew Rembaker's face lit with a warm sweet glow. "I have a plan."

Hotchkiss sighed. "Figured you might."

"An' it's a humdinger!"

"Well hot diddely doody," Hotchkiss slurred with contempt.

For the second time in as many days, Heyes manipulated the pick in the lock to the Merchant's Bank of Denver. As always, Kid Curry stood over his back, gun drawn, ready for trouble. There was none, and Heyes had the door open inside two minutes.

Kid picked up the box, padded and protected in a large sheet of soft, white flannel. Slowly, carefully, he carried the box in through the door behind Heyes like it was his newborn child and put it down softly on a clerk's desk.

Heyes stood before the safe, running his hands over it lovingly.

"Ooooh," he cooed. "What a beautiful piece of machinery. It really wounds me to hurt something so beautiful."

"Yeah? Well I'm beautiful too, Heyes, you make sure you don't hurt me and I'll be happy."

Heyes grinned. "You worry about doing your job, Kid, and I'll worry about mine."

Kid settled himself down in front of the window, keeping careful watch on the street as Heyes went to work, puttying up the safe.

"Tell me again why you're doing that."

"Sealing it up. Gotta be airtight, so's we can create a vacuum inside."

"Uh huh."

Kid jumped at the sound of a gunshot, braced himself, but it was just another high spirited blood in the saloon next door.

"Hell of a lot of noise Heyes, the whole town seems to be in uproar. Whaddaya think's goin on out there?"

Heyes grinned to himself. "Oh, don't worry about that Kid, that's just Denver celebrating."

There was a long pause as Heyes finished puttying the safe and set the alarm clock. "Forty minutes to wait. Think your nerves can stand the strain?" He grinned.

"OK Heyes, I'm biting. Celebrating what?"

"Huh?"

Kid sighed. Heyes could be _really _irritating sometimes. "What're they celebrating?"

"Oh!" Heyes smiled. "The capture of Heyes and Curry. Arrested this very evening. Got em in the jail here, didn't you hear?"

Kid turned to glare at his partner. "Heyes?"

Heyes glanced back at him. "Kid, you ever take a good look at those two detectives? I mean _really_ look? Like, how would you describe them, if you was writing up a wanted poster on 'em?"

Kid grinned. "Heyes!"

Heyes nodded with a smile. "I mean, who's gonna figure the bank being robbed tonight with those two hardened desperados safely locked away?"

'You're a genius!"

"Well that's I keep telling folks but no one believes me," Heyes said, shaking his head in wonder.

He checked the clock again, then wandered around the bank, disappearing into the gloom behind the safe. "Guess these must be the safe deposit boxes huh?"

"I guess."

"Heyes...?" There was some rattling and banging, then quiet, then more rattling. "Heyes, what are you doing back there?"

"Nothing Kid, nothing. Just killing time."

"So, how'd you do that? Rembaker and Hotchkiss?"

"Well..." Heyes emerged back into the dim light from the well shaded lantern he had placed by the safe. He glanced again at the clock.

"While I was losing to Rembaker in the saloon this afternoon, I kinda let a few things slip, like - how my friend was bodyguarding little Miss Deans. What with her being so nervous and all, with a thirty thousand dollar necklace hidden in the false bottom of a travelling bag under the bed in her room..."

"How'd you know that? I didn't know that."

"Oh, it's amazing what you can find out when you buy a man a coupla beers and get him talkin about his woes. That poor cowboy's a true innocent, Kid, be a shame to let him loose, a wanted man at that, in a wicked world like this."

"You didn't sweetalk poor Henry?"

"I had the purest, the noblest of motives."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah!" Heyes adopted an air of injured innocence as the alarm clock rang, hardly heard above the shooting, yelling and firecrackers outside. Heyes gathered up the Bryant pump. "OK Kid, I need your superior strength and stamina here."

Heyes got out his gun and took Kid's place on watch at the window. Kid began pumping.

"Woah! This is hard! We are going to swap over halfway right?"

Heyes looked at his watch. "I figured you'd wanna do something to earn your share of the pot, what with me having done all the thinking an all... Only fifteen minutes more."

Heyes sat down at the window, crossed his legs, took out his watch and made himself comfortable. Kid's answer couldn't be heard over the squeaking of the pump and the racket in the street.

"Well," Heyes sighed. "I'd had a little too much to drink, you know. Told Rembaker and whatsisname, the blonde one..."

"Hotchkiss!" Kid grunted, breathless as he heaved up and down on the pump.

"Johnson Alexander Hotchkiss the third."

"That a fact?" Heyes laughed. "Man with a name like that ain't got time to be stealing jewels. Just signing the hotel register must keep him up half the night. Well, while Lew was taking my money, he was getting information out of me too. See, they already knew I knew Henry so they must've figured I knew Sarah as well. Didn't even notice that I was finding out a little about them, too. Like, which hotel they were moving on to.

"Anyhow, I kinda let it drop, how we was taking the poor little thing and her fiancée to supper that night, at eight o' clock sharp, cheer her up, what with her being so sad 'cause her pa was being so awful mean to her.

"Well, while Hotchkiss and Rembaker were off celebrating with their winnings, I was doing a little light burglary. I took a trip over to that terrible cheap hotel they fetched up in... How you doing?"

"How do you _think_ I'm doing Heyes? How much longer do I have to keep at this?"

Heyes checked his watch again. "Just five minutes more. You look a little red in the face, Kid. You feeling feverish? ...And, I took their Bannerman ID's and went on over to the sheriff's office."

Kid looked up in horror. Heyes grinned.

"Well Kid, there I was with that card from the Bannerman Agency describing me as Lewis Kershaw Rembaker, five feet eleven, dark hair, brown eyes. I figured I was on pretty safe ground there.

"Sheriff was a real nice fella as it turned out, name of Davey Ferguson. Course, at first, he was kinda suspicious, got the feeling he didn't care much for the Bannerman agency. But when I told him

Heyes and Curry were in town, gonna be heading to the Apollo Hotel around eight that evening to steal a young girl's diamonds right out of her room, well, suddenly that guy couldn't get enough of my company... OK, you can stop now."

Kid slumped down in a chair and quietly puffed and sweated to himself. "Didn't he wanna know why a Bannerman man was turning Heyes and Curry over to the sheriff, rather than taking them in himself, for the good and glory of the Agency?"

"No, no. Well, I told it to him straight, couldn't see any reason to let George Bannerman take ninety percent of that twenty thousand bounty. Figured it was enough for a man to retire on, so I figured I'd side-step the agency and take all the reward for myself." Heyes grinned, walking over to the safe, rubbing his hands gleefully. "OK Kid, this is where the fun begins."

Heyes unwrapped the box from the folds of flannel, opened it up and took out the nitro as Kid watched, his eyes never leaving his partner's hands as he slowly lifted the bottle and opened it.

Kid lifted the pipe and attached the funnel.

"OK," Heyes whispered. "Hold it steady now." - And poured out the explosive, so slow, slowly as he could. Kid tried not to breathe as Heyes opened the valve on the pipe, the vacuum drawing the nitro down into the safe.

"OK," Heyes said, trying not to sound relieved.

Kid wiped the sweat from his eyes and watched as his partner bit down on a blasting cap, joining it to the fuse wire before pushing it into the putty on the safe. Heyes unwound the wire, down through the bank, through the teller's doors to a safe place behind the counter where they'd be shielded from the blast.

Outside in the street, the noise of gunfire, yelling, shouting and all round hot-temperedness had just about peaked as Hannibal Heyes struck a match and touched it to the fuse.

"Townsfolks are getting downright rowdy," Kid grinned. "How drunk do you think them lawmen are Heyes?"

"I'd say pretty drunk, Kid."

The spark fizzed and crackled it's way down to the safe.

"...So, the way I figured it, the capture of them two notorious outlaws Heyes and whatsisname woulda had the whole town of Denver in a state of uproar all night." Heyes explained as the two outlaws rode together through the mountains. The rain had finally stopped - after washing clean any tracks they might have made within ten miles of Denver. Now the sun was shining, hot on their backs. The mountain air so fresh and clear and full of the clean green scent of sap and pine.

"...'specially since that nice little Miss Deans was so grateful she gave me three hundred dollars to pass on to the good men of Denver for the purposes of hooraying the town in celebration."

"She did that?"

"Kid, she ain't got three hundred dollars to give even if she wanted to. No, that was my money, from the Wolcott job."

"Very generous of you Heyes," Kid laughed.

"Well, I figured since I'd planned on taking a few thousand from the bank that night, I could afford to pepper up the town a little."

"And, you figured the town'd be so good and noisy by the time we blew that safe, even if anyone noticed the blast over the hulabaloo, they'd be too darn drunk to get on their horses and ride after us."

"The thought did cross my mind."

Kid laughed happily. "How much we get?"

"Haven't counted it all yet Kid, somewhere t'other side of twenty eight thousand dollars."

"Whada we do? Take ourselves off to Mexico for a bit? Gonna be a few days yet till they find out those men in jail aren't who they think they are. Gives us plenty of time to get clean out of the country..."

"Oh Kid, what would we do in Mexico? I'm having way too much fun right here in Colorado."

"But what about poor Sarah? I mean, what's she gonna do? Her and Henry? I wouldn't put it past that father of hers to put a price on her head."

"Kid, will you stop fretting over the girl! She'll be OK. Trust me, I have a feeling for these things."

"...So Mr Slattery warned me he'd overheard two men he recognised as Curry and Heyes in a very rough saloon on the other side of town discussing robbing me of my diamonds," Sarah told Henry as they walked down the hotel stairs together that morning.

Henry gawped. "How'd they ever find out about your jewels sugar?"

"Well, I don't know Henry, but such notorious outlaws are surely able to find out just about most anything they please."

"Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry! Hoowhee! Who'd a thought it? A pair of famous Dime novel characters like them two planning to rob my Sarah."

"Well, they didn't get anything and now they're in jail, thanks to Mr Barton and Mr Slattery. When Mr Slattery came and told me that afternoon, I could have died with fright. But he told me not to worry, because it was all set up. We were to go to supper with Mr Barton as if we hadn't a worry in the world, and he'd put the jewels in the hotel safe for me. So!" She beamed at the desk clerk. "All's well that ends well. Have you seen Mr Barton or Mr Slattery this morning?" she asked the clerk. "They've probably already gone into breakfast. I'm rather late rising, I didn't get much sleep, what with the terrible noise in the street last night..."

"Mr Barton and Mr Slattery checked out last night Ma'am."

Sarah's face fell. "Henry? What does he mean?"

"Well, I guess he means they left, sugar. Without sayin goodbye? That seems kinda strange."

Sarah's face began to purple. She let out a low moaning sound. "No. No. No. Oh no!"

"Sugar...?"

"Please, Mr... desk Clerk. Could you let me have my jewels from the safe?"

"Well, I have to get the manager to do that Ma'am, I don't have the combination..."

"I don't care who does it!" She hissed. "Just get that safe open. I have to see my jewels!"

"NO! No! No! No! No!" Sarah shrilled fit to bring on an earthquake.

Henry picked the note out of the empty jewel box;

_Sarah, you don't need diamonds if you're gonna marry a farmer. Henry's got more than enough money now to see you through your first year till you get that first crop. take it from a farmer's boy who knows about these things._

_We'd wish you luck, but reckon a girl as quick and clever and savvy as you don't need any. _

_Matt Slattery & Sam Barton. _

"Henry? What does he mean, you've got more than enough money now?"

"Well, truth is sugar. Last night..."

"Yes Henry?"

"Well, I ain't used to champagne like you are Sarah. Truth is, I was moren' a little the worse for wear if you know what I mean and Mr Slattery, didn't get back till gone eleven, He was all soaking and wet and sorry for missing supper and all, only he'd had business to clear up..."

"Go on, Henry."

"Well, he asked me if'n' I wouldn't care to go downtown and play a little poker with him, to cheer himself up and all."

"Henry Summerville how could you?" Sarah hissed, aware that all eyes in the lobby were on them. She took him by the elbow and ushered him behind a potted palm. "After you promised me so faithfully you would never, ever again..."

"I know sugar. I'm awful sorry. It was all that champagne. I don't ever wanna drink champagne again as long as I live. I feel terrible this morning and I didn't even like the stuff. Rather have me a beer any day of the week..."

"What did he mean," she interrupted him. "You've more than enough money now?"

"Well, I figure he musta been drunker even than me, or havin a bad day or somethin cos I won."

"How much Henry?"

"'Bout four thousand dollars."

"Well, I'm mighty sorry to have troubled you so much boys," Sheriff Ferguson said, unlocking the cell door on two crumpled, unwashed, unshaven, sorry-for-themselves detectives.

"Well that's as maybe Sheriff," Hotchkiss sneered. "All very fine and dandy to say you're sorry, that doesn't exactly make up for the inconvenience, the shame and ignominy..."

"Can it, John," his partner sighed, taking his gun, watch and ring from the sheriff.

Hotchkiss glared fire at his partner, but seeing the look Rembaker returned quickly swallowed the tirade that was building in his injured breast.

"Boys, this letter got pushed under the door the night you was arrested, addressed to the both of you. Ain't been opened, we been keeping it for you. Hotchkiss snatched it from him and tore it open.

"This wire also came this morning..."

Rembaker opened the telegram. "What's yours say?" He asked Hotchkiss.

"You first."

"It's from Bannerman, firing us as of last week."

"Uh Huh."

"How about you?"

"Key to a safety deposit box at the Merchant's Bank."

Wrapped around the Deans diamonds was a letter;

_Figure Old Man Deans should be grateful enough to you for returning his jewels to pay you at least half of what he owes you - even without the girl. Should be enough to get you a stake, start out in some new line of work - cos if you ain't too proud to take some advice, you'll give up the detecting game. You two are just too suspicious and dishonest looking for that trade. You surely ought to keep out of the way of any lawmen - you don't wanna go getting yourself get mistaken for Hannibal Heyes and that other fella again. _

_Your friend, Matt Slattery._

"Heyes, you didn't give Henry stolen money?"

"Kid! That was just money I won at poker that same night I let Hotchkiss and Rembaker take me for a measly four hundred bucks. There's more than one poker game in town. Some of them are pretty high stakes."

"Heyes, you never cease to be a wonder to me," Kid smiled.

"I never cease to be a wonder to myself Kid. Anyhow, with twenty eight thousand dollars in our saddlebags, keeping money I won at poker, and on a Sunday too - why that just seemed downright sinful..."

THE END.

31


End file.
